Since when did America stand by as dictators cluster-bombed innocents? It’s time Biden called Putin’s bulls–t nuke bluff
What will it take, America?
Seriously, what more does Vladimir Putin need to do before the world’s No. 1 superpower, leader of the free world, and possessor of the greatest military force in history, stops him?
The cowardly Russian gangster has illegally invaded a sovereign democratic country and is using illegal cluster bombs to murder innocent women and children in Ukrainian cities.
Everyone seems in agreement that this is a flagrant breach of international law, a disgustingly immoral act, and Putin’s a despicable war criminal.
But nobody dares stop him.
Oh, the Ukrainians are trying to, and my God, what a magnificently courageous and resilient people they’re showing themselves to be, led by their stupendously inspiring president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
I’m in awe of their heroism, their determination, their stomach for the fight despite overwhelmingly bad odds against a far larger and better-equipped enemy.
Sadly, that awe doesn’t extend to President Biden, who seems to think Putin can be defeated by Ukrainian resistance and Western financial punishment alone.
He can’t.
Putin’s one of the world’s richest men thanks to decades of ruthlessly feathering his own nest with the ill-gotten gains of his corrupt regime.
He doesn’t give a damn about sanctions, or the collapsing price of the ruble, or a few of his oligarch cronies getting a pain in the wallet. He’s priced all the economic fallout into his evil master plan.
As the former KGB assassin reaches his presidential dotage, all he cares about is his legacy, and he wants to go down as the Russian leader who restored the Soviet Union to what he sees as its rightful size and power.
Putin is a dictator — a vile, soulless, cynical bullyboy who doesn’t care how many corpses he creates to achieve his imperial ambitions.
The only language men like him understand is force, not being told he’s temporarily down to his last $50 billion.
But right now, he senses weakness among those with the capability to curb his warmongering, and especially in an American president whom he witnessed desert the Afghan people to the Taliban wolves last summer.
Putin’s calculated that the US doesn’t have the will to take him on, hence his preposterous saber-rattling rhetoric suggesting he’ll unleash Russia’s nuclear arsenal if America, or anyone else, tries.
By threatening this, he’s confirmed himself to be a delusional monster, but not one who’s stupid or mad enough to start something he knows can’t finish in anything but the immediate destruction of everything he’s fighting for.
Putin’s not to going to be nuking anyone, not so long as America has the power to vaporize him and his entire country in seconds.
That’s the whole point of the nuclear deterrent, not that it gets used as a protective shield for demented despots to invade countries and wage genocide on their populaces.
Yet that’s exactly what Putin’s doing, and it’s time to call his bullsh–t bluff.
Last night, billionaire US investor Bill Ackman tweeted Biden, urging him to do more.
“Is there a point at which we say it is un-American to sit back and watch this transpire?” he asked. “Putin is rallying the nuclear saber as he gets more desperate. What if? Do we wait for him to kill millions before we intervene? What precedent are we continuing to set by allowing this to play out? The defense of Ukraine is a just war. It is not about oil or money. It is about right and wrong, and those are the wars that we should fight. And if we take the long-term view and punish madmen for their actions, we can deter their larger ambitions.”
He’s right, isn’t he?
And there’s a good precedent for this.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq’s neighboring state of Kuwait in 1990, America led a NATO military intervention, Desert Storm, that sent him and his forces packing in just 43 days.
President George H.W. Bush explained his decision by saying: “The terrible crimes and tortures committed by Saddam’s henchmen against the innocent people of Kuwait are an affront to mankind and a challenge to the freedom of all … no nation will be permitted to brutally assault its neighbor.”
Bush then quoted two members of the US forces tasked with liberating Kuwait.
“Listen to one of our great officers out there, Marine Lieutenant General Walter Boomer. He said: ‘There are things worth fighting for. A world in which brutality and lawlessness are allowed to go unchecked isn’t the kind of world we’re going to want to live in.’ And listen to Jackie Jones, an Army lieutenant, when she says, ‘If we let him get away with this, who knows what’s going to be next?'”
Exactly.
The only difference between Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin is that the latter has nuclear weapons.
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But the moral argument for America intervening militarily in Ukraine is the same as it was in Kuwait 32 years ago.
If the US lets Putin use his nuke threats to scare them off, Russia will continue its nation-seizing rampage like the Nazis did in 1938-9, and other foes like China and North Korea may feel emboldened to start doing the same.
It will be like waving a white flag of surrender.
And as Bill Ackman said, this feels very un-American.
